


a twin reality

by TackyJackie



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Other, Pre-Canon, ben lives au, sorry folks, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 13:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13952427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TackyJackie/pseuds/TackyJackie
Summary: Juno Steel works for the HCPDBenzaiten Steel works is a private investegatorWhat could go wrong





	a twin reality

Juno and Benzaiten Steel, everyone in the HCPD knows about these two. The Steel twins are infamous for being nosy and digging too deep. Ben had quit the HCPD and turned to private investigating as Juno stayed on the force. 

 

Time passed and the brothers grew apart, Ben stopped talking to Juno cold turkey one day offering zero explanation, until that it, he showed up at Juno’s door looking more scared and ashamed than Juno had ever seen him. He’d tried to explain things, he tried to fix things. The next day Juno opened the door to a different kind familiar face, two officers he worked with stood at his door.

 

“Juno Steel, you’re under arrest for the murder of Benzaiten Steel,” Taylors said no emotion on his face. Juno felt his blood freeze. The murder of… No, no this- that’s not right. Juno had just talked to Ben last night, he had just  _ seen _ his brother. Just when he came back to Juno and explained things. This couldn’t be happening. He was shaking when Taylors and Brown grabbed him.

 

“Let go of me! I- where’s Ben? Where the fuck is my brother?” He tried to get away but they stunned, knocked him unconscious, and cuffed him before he could. His last lucid second was filled with doubt and fear.

 

He woke up several hours later on a shitty bed in a cell. It took a moment to register why he was there, once he did he felt a wave of denial crash over him. He refused to believe that Ben was dead. He’d only just gotten him back. 

 

“Juno Steel, why am I not surprised to see  _ you  _ in there?” Khan… Juno stood up and searched Khan’s face for anything that could help him here. There was nothing but disdain on his face. “You always were a little… how do I put it,” he paused looking for the right word, “well, you always were a little bit of a bad cop but, killing your  _ own brother _ ?” Juno almost lost it right then and there, he didn’t do it, he would never do it. Why didn’t anyone believe him?

 

“You know I didn’t kill Ben,” Juno said taking a step closer to the door. Of all the people, Khan  _ had _ to believe him.

 

* * *

 

Ben was offered an ultimatum, Pereyra was very explicit in their terms. Ben stops looking into things and Juno lives. He spends even a second more on this or speaks to Juno about what he found and Juno only lives long enough to scream until his vocal chords rupture.

 

He was backed into a corner without a weapon by Pereyra who had an army at their disposal. So he cut himself off from Juno, he stopped talking to him, he even moved farther away from him. He did as much as he could to stay as far away from Juno as possible.

 

Ben was weak. He only lasted three months before crawling back to Juno. He didn’t know Diamond was living with Juno, he didn’t know about the ring on Juno’s finger, he didn’t know he only had a few more hours to live. A lot can happen in a short amount of time. Diamond stayed hidden in the bedroom, waiting, listening. When he left Juno’s apartment half past two in the morning he didn’t notice Diamond until it was too late.

 

“Benzaiten Steel, I think we should have a word,” Diamond said, gun held up to the back of his head. Ben put his hands up and slowly turned to face them. 

 

“Lemme guess, you work for Pereyra?” He made eye contact, pointedly ignoring the gun less than two inches away from his face. Diamond didn’t acknowledge his question.

 

“I need him alive for… other things, so I’m letting you off easy. Instead of living with the memory of Juno’s screams as he dies for the rest of your life, you get to die knowing he’ll be arrested for your death.” Ben faltered. 

 

“Arrest- what? What do you mean?” He thought about reaching for his own gun but decided against it.

 

“You were on the force, you know that each gun gets DNA coded to the cop who it’s issued to,” they grinned, “this one just so happens to be coded to Juno.”

 

He took a shaky breath, he knew that they could find out who someone was killed by. Or at least whose  _ weapon _ they were killed by. 

 

“If you need him for some cryptic thing, why get him arrested?” He was running out of time fast, might as well try and get some closure. Diamond laughed at him.

 

“Nice try at stalling, Steel, but a smoke break can only last so long.” Ben held his chin high and glared at Diamond. 

 

“If you hurt him, I’ll come back and haunt you.” An empty threat, but not too terrible for last words all things considered. 

 

“Brave words coming from someone quaking in their boots,” Diamond laughed as they shot Ben point-blank in the head.

 

* * *

 

Juno had been stuck in that cell for over twelve hours, Diamond hadn’t stopped by yet. Not that he was hoping for his fiance to see him after being arrested for his brother’s murder but, a friendly face would have been nice. 

 

He was trying to narrow down his own suspect list when the door clicked open. He whipped up into a sitting position as Khan stepped into the room.

 

“You’re free to go Steel,” he sounded almost disappointed, “you were bailed out.” Juno stood, disbelief crossed his face.

 

“By  _ who? _ ” Khan grumbled.

 

“By Diamond.”

 

A few short hours later Juno was dishonorably discharged on the grounds of his brother’s murder and he was back at his apartment with Diamond.

 

“You didn’t have to bail me out…” Juno said curling into Diamond’s side as the two sat on his stingy couch. Diamond hummed.

 

“I’m not going to let my partner rot in jail for a murder he didn’t commit,” They said. Juno visibly relaxed, Diamond looked at him. “Don’t tell me you thought I believed all that.”

 

“The evidence is stacked pretty high, you’ve got to admit that…” Juno sighed, he had seen Ben’s corpse when he was leaving - the HCPD must have thought it was all some fun joke to play, show him his brother’s body as he’s being kicked off the force - the image of his twin laying there, cold and pale, with a hole in his head would haunt him for the rest of his life.

 

“It wasn’t stacked  _ that _ high, Juno,” Diamond said pulling Juno even closer.

 

“I didn’t have an alibi, it was  _ my _ gun, he was looking into the HCPD, we weren’t speaking for months and when we do finally talk again he turns up dead the next day.”

 

“Well, when you put it like that…” They shook their head, “It’s fine now though, all that happened is you got fired.”

 

“Not fired, dishonorably discharged.” 

 

“Whatever,” they waved a hand dismissively, “what matters now is that you’re here in my arms safe.” 

 

“Yeah, sure.” 

 

In the next few days, Juno became reacquainted with being unemployed, something he did not miss. He thought about leaving Hyperion City, maybe going out to Olympus Mons or some other city and doing police work there, but word of his brother had no doubt spread by the time he thought about it.

 

One night as he and Diamond were getting in bed he brought up an idea that had been plaguing his mind for weeks.

 

“So, I’m thinking about doing private detective work…” Diamond froze and looked at him.

 

“You mean the kind of work your dead brother used to do, the kind that most likely got him killed?” Juno nodded.

 

“Well, I was thinking if the HCPD won’t figure out who killed him - full offense - then I might as well,” Juno sighed. 

 

“If you start to look into the police after I bailed you out it’ll look really bad, Juno.”

 

“For who, you or me? I’ve got nothing to lose here, Diamond,” Juno snapped.

 

“For  _ both _ of us, it’ll be bad for the both of us. I might even get kicked off the force too.” Juno didn’t look happy at the way they said that, but it was too late to go back now.

 

“What’s the alternative, keeping my head down for the rest of my life? Not likely, I’m doing this whether you want me to or not, I wasn’t asking for approval I was letting you know.”

 

Diamond didn’t wake Juno up when they left for work the next morning like they usually did. They started spending more time at the HCPD as Juno spent more time becoming a PI and taking his first few cases.

 

Juno and Diamond grew farther and farther apart but they marched on forwards with making their relationship look nice and pretty. 

 

“Three days until the wedding, Juno,” Diamond said sitting down on the opposite side of the couch.

 

“It’s that soon already?” Juno asked moving closer to Diamond. 

 

“Yeah, and to think it’s like it was yesterday when I was bailing you out of prison,” Juno let out a strained laugh.

 

The days passed and the big day came, after all that had happened Juno still genuinely wanted to be with Diamond, he was genuinely excited to spend his life with this person. He never got to do that though. Diamond left and took Juno’s notes on the HCPD with them, the notes he hid deep beneath his PI paperwork. Juno tried to forget that night, tried to forget his brother, his ex-fiance who turned out to be dirty, his former job, his life, you name it and he tried to forget it.

 

The days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years, and eventually, he had hidden his past as well as he could - meaning in boxes at the back of his closet. Pictures of Ben, pictures of Diamond, that damn dress, all stuffed away in a box collecting dust.

 

The death mask of Grimpothuthis came and went, Miasma came and went, Pilot Pereyra came and went, as did Peter Nureyev. 

 

Nureyev would ask sometimes, on quiet nights, if Juno missed the police work. Juno would always say no, while technically not a lie, it wasn’t exactly true either. For Juno, police work was directly tied to Benzaiten Steel, then again so was being a private detective and even his own face. He did find out, eventually, who killed Ben, he wished he was more surprised when he figured it out. 

 

“Hey Juno,” Nureyev started, sitting on the couch as close to Juno as possible without technically being on him, “can I ask-”

 

“No.”

 

“-why you became a detective?” Juno sighed as he looked at Nureyev’s face.

 

“It’s a long story, Nureyev.”

 

“For you, Juno, I have all the time in existence.” Juno smiled beside himself. He slowly started his story as he thought to himself that Ben would have liked Nureyev and that maybe this time, he’d get the whole dating thing right.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by some angst we came up with on the juno discord


End file.
